AVENGERS: Grade, Reviews, Discuss, DVD & Sequel **SPOILERS**

[davejames]

Ethros wrote:

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The issue (at least for Iron Man 3) has been addressed by Kevin Feige
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/n...vin-feige.html

I wouldn't even think that would be an issue with Iron Man. Short of another alien invasion, Tony's ego would prevent him from asking for anybody else's help anyway.

To me the only issue future movies have to deal with is why Fury and SHIELD (who seem to be aware of everything that's going on) don't intervene and force Thor, Cap, etc to help out during one of those huge, city-wide battles that happen in nearly every superhero movie.

Thousands of lives are being endangered by some rampaging monster or supervillain, and Fury is just gonna let Iron Man or Cap handle it on their own? Really??

[DWF]

davejames wrote:

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Thousands of lives are being endangered by some rampaging monster or supervillain, and Fury is just gonna let Iron Man or Cap handle it on their own? Really??

Well we saw how useful SHIELD was in the Thor movie and the Black Widow did help out in the second Iron Man movie, but in the end the heroes were left to solve the problems themselves.

[Samurai8472]

Second post credits scene revealed


SPOILER

After the battle, the Avengers team are sitting quietly with no dialogue eating shwarma.

Photo

[Ayelbourne]

That's soo Joss Whedon.

[DarkHorizon]

Slightly miffed that this is being added to the print almost a week after it's been released elsewhere. Hopefully it'll be on there when I go and see it again this weekend.

[Captain Craig]

DarkHorizon wrote:

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Slightly miffed that this is being added to the print almost a week after it's been released elsewhere.

So that spoiler photo that I didn't look at is an additional second end credits scene not on the current international print of the film? Yes I posted the link but didn't actually read the article myself.

I wonder if that is anything to do with that scene they shot mid-April after the official L.A. premiere.

Or, more accurately, they're done filming now, but only because while I was sitting in a theater in Hollywood watching the movie, The Avengers were assembled once again to shoot… something.

What they shot is still a closely-guarded secret, but the point of the timing was so that they could get everyone in one place at the same time. Makes sense. There are a few moments in the film where you can't help but marvel at the fact that they really did it, they really put this thing together, and ever doing it again is going to be even twice the magic trick. It's not just a matter of money, either. These movies have served to launch careers and relaunch others, and they're going to be some busy, busy people in the next few years.

At the press conference today, Downey mentioned that they were planning to shoot a new scene later in the day. I saw people on Twitter mention the comment, particularly Devin Faraci and Geoff, who Tweeted:

"Robert Downey Jr just said #TheAvengers is not done shooting."

Does this help ensure repeat business internationally? Some here have seen it twice already. Others about the net I see have as well. Does this piss them off or just an excuse they didn't really need to view it a third time?

[Captain Craig]

Updates on the International Numbers for The Avengers and they are crazy good still!!! The current tally stands at $260.5m thus far after 8 full days in International release!! Could this hit $300m internationally before it opens officially on Friday in North America?!!

Yesterday alone The Avengers made $42.3M overseas from 41 territories, bringing the total through Tuesday to $260.5M.....Overseas, Thailand & Singapore opened yesterday on their National Labor Day holiday and set not only the highest opening day in industry history, but also the highest grossing single day of all-time.

Also in the piece is an uptick from Fandango

Fandango reports a surge in advance ticket sales for The Avengers which is scooping up 94% of today’s pre-sales. Marvel’s superhero ensemble is currently outpacing last summer’s blockbuster Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon at the same point in that film’s sales cycle.

My original thought as that by releasing international first they would basically "trick" that large population who would turn to piracy by making it available there first thus forcing them to pay up vs download.
Now I'm thinking it could be two fold. The industry loves domestic holiday weekend openers. It's why Memorial Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas are coveted slots.
The first weekend in May has been the de-facto start of summer domestically for some time now but internationally there are a few holidays just before. We saw the Australian one timed with Avengers and this piece mentions it was timed in Thailand & Singapore as well to open on national holidays.

[Ethros]

DWF wrote:

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Well we saw how useful SHIELD was in the Thor movie and the Black Widow did help out in the second Iron Man movie, but in the end the heroes were left to solve the problems themselves.

Just to add another point, which isn't really even a spoiler really, but I'll use the code just in case anyone who hasn't seen it hopes it will happen...

War Machine isn't in it.

Indeed he's not even mentioned at all. You could say why doesn't Shield get him involved? Or at least ask him to help, when NY is under attack by hordes of alien monsters you're gonna want all the firepower you can.

Obvs I guess the real reason is they didn't want another "iron-man" in the movie, so as to not steal Iron Man, or indeed RDJ's thunder onscreen, when there was another character who was just as strong as him, if not more, and all all the same powers too.

[superdeluxe]

Armond White has returned!!

The Delusion of Marvel’s The Avengers

Previous Marvel Comics superhero movies such as Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America and Thor were like roughly cut puzzle pieces that looked odd and unfinished by themselves–pretend-movies derived from already established brands. Most of them, particularly Jon Favreau’s dung-colored Iron Man, were poorly directed. Now, fitted together in Marvel’s The Avengers, the superhero tales still don’t quite cohere: instead, each superhero’s traits and powers have been simultaneously inflated yet streamlined (Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow, barely a cameo in last year’s Captain America, is almost a character here) with the sole intent to overwhelm, not merely entertain. That’s why a corporate brand is part of the title.

A live-action version of the comic book series about “Earth’s Greatest Super Heroes,” Marvel’s The Avengers is promoted as the ultimate Comic-Con–the franchise of franchises, the movie for which contemporary audiences have been trained to anticipate and genuflect. This whopping sales campaign manipulates immature, undeveloped adolescent taste into the mistaken notion of cultural fulfillment. The Avengers is neither good nor important, yet the more it consummates Marvel Comics’ current strategy to secure the adolescent comic book/graphic novel/video game market, it illustrates Hollywood’s shameless insufficiencies.

To discuss The Avengers as a story–or even a thrill ride–is delusional. Best to tally some of the actors’ deceits (which parallels the media’s complicit self-deception) as they trivialize the emotional satisfaction that is supposed to come from modernizing myth and legend.

The Captain America role traps Chris Evans, who was a great tease as the Human Torch, in an uninteresting anachronism–now a truly faded idea of American Exceptionalism. Same holds for the Halloween freakazoids Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Bruce Banner/The Hulk (a CGI’d Mark Ruffalo). Jeremy Renner’s archer Hawkeye seems to be auditioning for Katniss’ evil twin brother in The Hunger Games. As villainous Loki, Tom Hiddleston, who was so moving in Spielberg’s War Horse and Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea, comes closest to giving a performance. He suggests the intense young aspirant Peter O’Toole, though without the glorious voice–and no story details to frame his petulance, just a pretext for the superheroes to fight his plan for world domination. The film’s only probable hero is zillionaire gadgeteer Tony Stark who Robert Downey has finally learned to make his own–using hipster witticisms that lend this basically unhip movie some erratic self-satire.

Only a capitalist icon with Stark’s endless resources makes sense to an audience of semi-illiterate consumers catered to by the leisure industries and discouraged from interest in characterization, theme or ideas. That’s why Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury can simply watch action from the sidelines, occasionally firing off a gun shot or epithet, pretending to be a leader in his ghetto eye patch. (Insert convenient Obama analogy here.)

Director Josh Wheedon brings TV squalor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to his big screen debut. Wheedon doesn’t have Zack Snyder’s personal style (the elan that at least made Watchmen and Sucker Punch thoroughly idiosyncratic and fitfully compelling). Wheedon directs impersonally, which is to say he manages the proceedings as one runs a fast food joint. This analogy ought to appall the very fast-food patrons who flock to The Avengers yet cannot accept that an artistic enterprise should be more than ground patties of optional substance. Like Wheedon, they can’t tell the difference between art and conviction-less product.

This proves the brainwashing that has happened to pop audiences in the generations since comic books and TV stole their imaginations from cinema and literature. Much of this tragedy has to do with the impact of television (Wheedon’s background) which has destroyed popular understanding of narrative complexity. Each superhero should represent overcoming some social or personal difficulty (like Eric Bana in Ang Lee’s underrated The Hulk); now they’re just gimmicks. Wheedon simply makes the action go on and on. He has no sense of dramatic build or rising to a peak. He overloads the spectator with one climax after another (imitating Michael Bay angles, particularly the same skyscraper-devouring turbine F/X from the last Transformers flick).

Unlike the lyrical teen fantasy Chronicle or Neveldine-Taylor’s daring Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance which addressed life, death, morality, Marvel’s The Avengers has little to say other than “Buy me!” Millions of mentally hijacked moviegoers will respond like Pavlov‘s dog, barking “Wow!”

If you really feel the need to give this guy hits:

http://cityarts.info/2012/05/02/pavl...99s-franchise/

[superdeluxe]

This was pretty good:

Wheedon doesn’t have Zack Snyder’s personal style (the elan that at least made Watchmen and Sucker Punch thoroughly idiosyncratic and fitfully compelling).

[Wereghost]

Looks like there's a gap in the market for a competent reviewer/journalist where Armond White works.

[Admiral James Kirk]

Never before, have I been tempted to choke a man to death with my cock, but... That guy... That fuckin' guy...

[Ethros]

Who's Josh Wheedon?

[TheBrew]

Ah, the Troll Emeritus returns.

[davejames]

Ghost Rider 2 was "daring"? I had no idea. Guess I'll have to check it out now.